


Truthtelling

by Daegaer



Series: For Art's Sake [38]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Art, Artists, Friendship, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Work, Xenophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 13:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: Crawford and Miss Lin have a hard conversation.





	Truthtelling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bardsley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardsley/gifts).



I am allowing myself a day free from toil in the late summer warmth. I stroll through Hyde Park, admiring other visitors and feeling quite at ease. The thought of how disgusted my father would be to see me wandering aimlessly in the middle of the work day cheers me more than I can say, and I bolster the thought by sitting on the most prominent bench I can find and smoking a cigarette in public. The only thing that could make it better would be if Schuldig were here to laugh at me, but he has been working for Miss Lin for the past week. It is still a very nice day, and I have plans to retrieve him from her clutches. (You think it unfair of me to describe the situation so, I know, and perhaps think I cannot work without my model actually in the room before me. I simply find it useful to have company as I work.)

By one o'clock I have found my way over to Marble Arch, and easily track down my prey – as I'm sure she would herself depict the situation in her work. Miss Lin is sitting on a small folding stool, sketching the arch. She is wearing a cheerful summer frock, one of her alarmingly modern hats, and her short nails are painted a bright coral.

"Miss Lin," I say, raising my hat as she looks up.

"Mr Crawford," she smiles, and points her pencil at the somewhat grimy marble. "You know this is the site of the infamous Tyburn Tree? An innovation in the machinery of public executions, allowing for _much_ better views for the crowds."

"How thoughtful," I say. "Have you adorned the current site with corpses?"

She grins. "This is just practice. See how conventional I can be –"

I take the sketchbook and admire her rendering of the arch. It's very precise, exactly the sort of thing someone who thinks photography is the pinnacle of art would love. Turning back a page I find a more fluid sketch of a strange, tall three-legged structure with bodies hanging from its crossbeams while cars drive past and roughly-drawn people hurry by, ignoring the ghosts of the past. I feel like the world is more as it should be, oddly glad to see her morbid sense at work.

"Are you ready for lunch?"

"Yes," she says, and packs her pencils and book away. She stands and pulls on a pair of light, summer gloves, and I pick up the folding stool and offer her my free arm.

I head towards a smart restaurant, one that normally would be too expensive, but I am still buoyant with my recent sale. Miss Lin looks at it dubiously.

"I'm not sure they'll have room," she says, which is considerate of her, but I have every intention of being a spendthrift.

"I rang ahead and reserved a table," I say cheerfully, encouraging her to the door.

"Mr Crawford," she says, sounding somewhat irritated, "that is not what I mean –"

"Good afternoon," I say to the maître d' who comes to greet us.

He doesn't even wait for me to say anything else, his gaze flicking to Miss Lin and then firmly to me.

"I'm terribly sorry, we don't have any tables at the moment."

"I have a reservation, under the name Crawford," I say, looking skeptically at the several empty tables. "For two."

He checks his book and looks at me with false regret. "I think we owe you an apology, sir, I'm afraid the person who took your reservation is new and didn't realize we were fully engaged this lunchtime."

"Mr Crawford, we can find another restaurant," Miss Lin says, her voice like steel. "Let's leave."

"Again, I'm so sorry," he says, and finally looks at her properly, with a small, malicious smile.

She pulls me back out into the street and down the path. I am unsure for several steps what exactly has happened until it strikes me.

"He actually threw us out because you're Chinese!"

I am astonished when Miss Lin, normally so amused with the world and self-composed, throws her hands up and makes a noise of wordless annoyance. Passers-by look at her side-long, but say nothing that I can hear.

"How can you be – you really are the most oblivious man in London." She glares at me, then looks away in disgust. She stands in total silence for some moments, then, "I am shouting at you because you're safe to shout at," she says unwillingly.

"I'm a fool," I say, feeling exactly that, "I know. My family think so, you think so – let's find a better place for lunch and you can tell me just how much of a fool I am."

She just looks at me, as if evaluating my words carefully.

"All right," she says at last, and takes my arm again. "As long as we can talk about our work instead. It's less annoying. Tell me all about this portrait for the library, do you think the patron is looking for another commission?"

We find ourselves at last in a smaller, homelier restaurant, where no one looks twice at either of us. Miss Lin seems determinedly cheerful again, talking about some work she is engaged in, a series of illustrations for a children's book. She laughs - finally a real laugh - at my expression and pulls out another sketchbook for me to look at.

"I've taken a leaf from your book," she says slyly, as I pause at an image of Schuldig transforming into what appears to be a malevolent wolf-creature. The transformation seems tortured and agonizing; bare muscle is visible in places.

"For children, you say?"

She shrugs. "The finished version may be a little less - _me_. As long as they pay me! One must eat, after all. Your rich Mr Fredricks, if he wants to put more pictures in libraries, send him my way. What does he like?"

"Young boys, as far as I can see," I say unguardedly, still leafing through her sketches, then I freeze in horror. How can I explain such a statement? Has Schuldig perhaps told her about the private paintings? When I look up she is clearly waiting for more.

"Come on, Mr Crawford, don't clam up. There's no sacred bond once you've got his money – gossip about your patron to your heart's content. I once painted a sickeningly bourgeois mural for a woman who started in on the gin at eight in the morning and told me all the details of what she did with her husband's valet. She showed me his bite marks on her thighs. Now you tell me something."

 _Salacious gossip_ , I think, _I can do salacious gossip_. I dredge up every last detail Schuldig mockingly told me and embroider it. Fredricks' _interest_ in helping working class boys better themselves, his obvious proclivities given the private picture he commissioned from me – although I of course omit to mention that entirely – and my assumptions that he is funding the library as a hunting ground.

"But he pays well?" Miss Lin says archly.

We look at each other, then we both laugh helplessly.

"This is a terrible world," I say at last. "I'm sorry to be part of it, sometimes. I couldn't go back to how I was before, though. And I really am sorry about earlier today."

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her thin fingers are surprisingly strong as they squeeze mine.

"All the Rosenkreuz group are outsiders in some way or another," she says. "At least you can now see that some can find their way to the inside more easily, should they wish."

"The _inside_ ," I say with scorn. "I wish I had Schuldig's – let's say facility with language to express what I think of it. Speaking of whom, may I have him back?"

She smiles warmly, still holding my hand.

"Of course you may. He's with me until Friday, then he's all yours. As if he's ever anyone else's. You and your lessons in art are really his sole topic of conversation –" Her grip tightens and she lowers her voice. "Be careful, Mr Crawford. He's young, and doesn't see all the pitfalls. Try to instill some caution. If he were to be arrested –"

"For what?" I say.

She sighs. "Just be cautious. _Both_ of you - please don't pretend to be oblivious about this - but especially make him cautious. His whole family could be harmed. Things would be harder for a foreign undesirable from the wrong side."

"But he's not," I say, "not really, he was born here."

"And my passport says I'm a British subject," she says acerbically. "But that's not what anyone sees when they look at me. Please, Mr Crawford, I'm saying this as a friend."

"I know," I say. "I'm trying to argue the world into the way I want it to be. He told you about the windows?"

"Yes. Be sensible. Keep him calm, keep him away from that Williamson man. You know the one?"

"Yes," I say grimly.

"Good. We have to stick together, we sensible ones. Now," she says brightly, "I should get back to work. I have children to terrify! I do hope that book illustration doesn't prove to be too lucrative, I'd hate to feel I'd have to move into it full time."

"Give the little darlings nightmares and you'll never get another contract," I say helpfully.

She giggles, standing. "You know, I've heard there's an illustrated children's bible being planned by the same publisher. I feel I could do an excellent job with the golden calf episode."

"Or the levite's concubine," I say, "ravishment and dismemberment. Perfect fare for the young. Shall I walk you back?"

"If you could carry the stool to the nearest Tube station I'd be delighted," she says, and slides her arm through mine.

We stroll through the warm afternoon, a young man and woman out together, and no one pays us any attention at all. I feel, oddly, as if I am in disguise and wonder if she feels the same. If this is caution, I think, it's not so bad. It feels like a comforting warm bath. Just for the moment, I think, it's just for the moment.


End file.
